Christmas lights gone wild.

[Fenguin]

http://img.engadget.com/common/images/3060000000055029.JPG?0.03278151148258357

A guy synchronized 16000 Christmas lights with music, yielding a real symphony of light. This stuff is fricking amazing.

Video: http://media.engadget.com/videos/lights.wmv

[psycho42b]

Nicely done. Good find. :banana: :banana:

[BlackHawk]

Wow, that's just...wow, amazing. I want the song too, it rocks :).

[psycho42b]

I want the song too, it rocks :).
I have it, I just don't remember what the name was.

edit: the name is Wizards in Winter, by Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

edit2: I would give it to you, but that, I believe, is illegal... :mad:

[Trotters]

His Neighbors must hate him

[chibi]

I wonder what his hydro bill is? >_>

I just sat in awe because who has that much time on their hands? I very much enjoyed it though ^_^

[AJ]

I think the star and its rays were probably my favorite aspect.
i'd love to do something like that -- but i'd wind up annoying myself. ;)

[Geno]

There's one little phrase that comes to mind right about now...

"When one goes out, they all go out."

Dear God, think about how long the TROUBLESHOOTING would go.. >.<

~Larry "Geno" Meyers

[bluemicrobyte]

hehe, that's the kind of thing I would do :P

[Neo]

Trans siberian orchestra rox dudes!

And holy shit on a popsicle o_o;; That dude is nuts. Cool, but has to be insane.

-Neo

[psycho42b]

"When one goes out, they all go out." Actually, they solved that problem. In the newer models of christmast lights, if one goes out, they rest stay lit. I have one.

[TinyDancer]

Wow...I wonder how long that took. It's pretty awesome, but it would get annoying after a while. Imagine how scary it would be to just be a kid walking down the street, and then BAM! This music starts blasting and a house is lighting up all over the place. Hahaha...

[The_Maker]

Saw it yesterday on the same website that Aquarian posted the link to for "Counter Struck"

Very nice work whoever did it :P

Its along the same lines as my uv ccfls in my case, whenever a sensor picks up noise power is sent to the lights, but in this case he has one helluva setup o_O

[Stonehand]

ZOMG OMG OMG!!! er.. I mean... wait, that's exactly wha I mean. AWSOMENESS!!! That was uber greatness times ten!! I wonder how long it took them to set the timings,,,

[Sikawtic]

Can you say OCD?

[GenocideAlive]

Jesus. Maybe an epilepsy warning?

[Whiteknight]

That is un-freaking believiable. I can't belive it's all real time too, not stop motion. (There was a light, probably from a cell phone tower, that blinked at regular intervals). Damn, I so want to do that now.

[Toucan]

That was great.
They have a competition down here for the best christmas lights, the winner win's free power for 1 year, I think they would have used about a years worth before hand anyway LOL. I will wait till it gets a bit closer and drive around and get a few photo's.

[Aquarian]

I'd hate to see his Electricity Bill!

[ShadeZ]

I would love to just have been passing by at the time that they did this, it's the kind of thing that would me much better in real life ;D

[GenocideAlive]

Actually, they solved that problem. In the newer models of christmast lights, if one goes out, they rest stay lit. I have one.
Is this sarcasm? That's called a "parallel circuit", and has been around for almost as long as electricity. The only reason people buy series circuit Xmas lights is because they're so much cheaper and easy to mass-produce. But if you're willing to spring 1.75-3x as much for the lights, parallel circuit is pretty much standard.

[Neo]

Is this sarcasm? That's called a "parallel circuit", and has been around for almost as long as electricity. The only reason people buy series circuit Xmas lights is because they're so much cheaper and easy to mass-produce. But if you're willing to spring 1.75-3x as much for the lights, parallel circuit is pretty much standard.
I just picked up 3 26' string of lights for 1.99 each at walmart that are "parallel"

Pretty damn cheap if you ask me.

That used to bug the shit out of me on old lights ><! stupid one bulb that went out and the whole string is useless.

Though I really miss the old giant lights :(

-Neo

[loads_of_fun]

WOW, that guy had wayyyyyyyyyyy
to much time on his hands

[hammocksleeper]

That is un-freaking believiable. I can't belive it's all real time too, not stop motion. (There was a light, probably from a cell phone tower, that blinked at regular intervals). Damn, I so want to do that now.

how the fuck do you do that in real-time? he must have had twenty people in the house working the light switches, and how do you coordinate that shit, like the back and forth lights between the top center window?

[GrassDragon]

how the fuck do you do that in real-time? he must have had twenty people in the house working the light switches, and how do you coordinate that shit, like the back and forth lights between the top center window?
I believe that invention called the computer could do it.

[BlackHawk]

how the fuck do you do that in real-time? he must have had twenty people in the house working the light switches, and how do you coordinate that shit, like the back and forth lights between the top center window?

Is that sarcasm? If not, he probably used computers to synch it up.

[Moser]

That was just awesome. Very cool.

[bluemicrobyte]

I believe that invention called the computer could do it.

Sure you could program a computer to do that -- the question is how? How do you make a computer turn christmas lights on and off even once?

[kongurous]

Sure you could program a computer to do that -- the question is how? How do you make a computer turn christmas lights on and off even once?

A sophisticated computer system. If the US Navy can make a cruise missile hit a target as small as a potato chip from 40 miles away, a computer can do that with lights.

[hammocksleeper]

Sure you could program a computer to do that -- the question is how? How do you make a computer turn christmas lights on and off even once?

yeah im sure a computer is capable of doing that, but i ask you (you meaning skippy and anyone else who thinks he did it with a computer), how do you take a residental house, one that is not wired for something like a computer overseer that controls the lights, and make that happen? i mean come on. how do YOU think he used a computer? did he have little robots at each switch that flipped them on and off? it's not like you can just plug in a computer to your phone line and have it flip the lights in the house

[GrassDragon]

My dad did a project during college for his degree in engineering. He created a device and a program that would accept an audio feed in and then blink lights based on the music. (I think they were LEDs, but they could have been Christmas lights for all I know.) It would give the same pattern if a song were played more than once, so it wasn't random. Similar to the little bars that jump up and down on your stereo when you're playing a song. My dad is 53. It can't be that difficult nowadays.

EDIT: And you don't need light switches to turn strings of lights on and off.

[Sikawtic]

hammock is just very closed minded. Don't mind him.

[Fenguin]

yeah im sure a computer is capable of doing that, but i ask you (you meaning skippy and anyone else who thinks he did it with a computer), how do you take a residental house, one that is not wired for something like a computer overseer that controls the lights, and make that happen? i mean come on. how do YOU think he used a computer? did he have little robots at each switch that flipped them on and off? it's not like you can just plug in a computer to your phone line and have it flip the lights in the house
It would be relatively easy to come up with a network of switches and control those switches with a computer. You don't need physical light switches being turned on and off; you just need some way to start and stop current to specific regions of lights to turn them on and off, and this can be easily done with switches determined by input voltage and such, diodes being one choice.

[Toucan]

Have a look around your local electronics shop, you will find many brands of pc controlled diode kits, you can attach anything that uses electricity to them and adjust voltage and amperage levels, there not new or anything, been around for years.

[hammocksleeper]

alright alright :)

[Toucan]

I got curious and started doing a little research into exactly how this is done, first I came across a conversation on a forum that in fact claimed this video was a fake, very disapointing:-

http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=60;t=001133;p=1

But some one posted a few posts in saying no It was not a fake and provided a heap of links on how it was done, where to get the stuff, how much it costs and how to set it up.
There is even a worldwide competition for the worlds best display.
If you like you can check it all out here :-

www.planetchristmas.com
www.lightorama.com
www.plymouthlights.com

Plus another display thats worthy of checking out (but be warned, the video is 25meg):-

http://www.moorecomputerservices.com/xmasvids/fischer01.wmv

[BlackHawk]

Update, found another one they just posted on Break.com (a.k.a. Big-Boys) (www.break.com):

Click here for the awesomeness (http://www.break.com/articles/houselights2.html).

[Toucan]

Very Awesome.
Having a look into all this, I found the guy that set up the first one posted by Fengiun and that last one posted by Blackhawk is actually a lighting expert that does lighting for concerts and stage show's of every description.
No wonder its a cut above.

[Xenon]

Take a song, write a MIDI track (each note is mapped to a different set of lights), process an outgoing signal (via either Serial Cable or some other form) with a PIC, and trigger relays to turn lights on and off, you can do whatever song you want. Not that hard.

[Geno]

Take a song, write a MIDI track (each note is mapped to a different set of lights), process an outgoing signal (via either Serial Cable or some other form) with a PIC, and trigger relays to turn lights on and off, you can do whatever song you want. Not that hard.

:worship:

And now everyone knows why I highly respect theXenon for his insane amount of wisdom and intelligence... Although sometimes I question his attitude XD

~Larry "Geno" Meyers

[Xenon]

Pshawww... everyone knows that old people are cranky. :D

I wouldn't call myself "wise" just yet... too many things to learn.

[GenocideAlive]

Yeah, especially since using that system would produce redundant light patterns for redundant (or chorus) parts of a song, which is definitely not the case for this display.